In a bid to ease accessibility of medical-grade oxygen amid the COVID crisis, the Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) of IIT Kanpur, has launched the agenda of 'Mission Bharat O2'. This programme is a 45-day open challenge for manufacturing high-quality indigenous, rapidly scalable oxygen generation units to help combat the pandemic emergency. A dire need of the hour, Mission Bharat O2 makes a strong case for leveraging local, indigenous talent to innovate the production supply chain of oxygen plants and concentrators.

New team, new goals!

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The Indian Institute of Kanpur has yet again taken a significant step to resolve the oxygen shortage in the country. It aims to boost the production speed and technique of oxygen generation in record time, to meet the high demand of LMO amid the second swell of COVID-19 infections.

As per reports, the challenge mission will be run by a task force under the leadership of Professor Amitabha Bandyopadhyay, Professor In-charge, Innovation & Incubation, IIT-K, Srikant Sastri, President, TiE Delhi-NCR and Rahul Patel, Head of Strategic Initiatives, SIIC, IIT Kanpur. To further progress this, the Director of IIT-Kanpur, Professor Abhay Karandikar has requested entrepreneurs to apply for the challenge as well.

This is not the first time that premier institute has stepped up to provide pandemic supplies. Last year, IIT Kanpur supported its incubated companies to develop indigenous products like the Swasa N-95 mask and Noccarc V310 ventilator. In a statement, Prof Abhay Karandikar also added that IIT-K and SIIC have decided to support more indigenous innovators, this time to address the need for self-sufficient oxygen generation units.

Invitation to young innovators to pitch their support

The task force leader of Mission Bharat O2, Prof. Bandyopadhyay said, "SIIC and IIT Kanpur have a history of delivering quality products as per the country's needs. We did it with the Noccarc ventilator; we will do it again with Mission Bharat O2. We urge young innovators to come up in large numbers to support the nation at this time."

He further added that "An ideal case scenario would be to work with a set of manufacturers in different regions with the target production capacity of 100 units per day initially and scale up gradually." On the other hand, Srikant Sastri highlighted the importance of the project and pointed out, "Entrepreneurs usually get carried away by a big idea without acknowledging whether the problem it solves is as big. With Mission Bharat O2, SIIC IIT Kanpur has taken a step toward solving a major crisis the country is grappling with today. We believe the team will make a mark with its combined entrepreneurial experience and vision to serve the nation."